


the redemption arc

by kuro49



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Post-Operation Pitfall (Pacific Rim), Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9919823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: Twenty years later, the Becket brothers find themselves outside of Budapest once more.





	

**Author's Note:**

> gdt's bios are the things of gods, my love for pr is eternal, and becketcest will never die in my heart.
> 
> please read[ raleigh's bio](https://twitter.com/RealGDT/status/834788010411618307) before this because that stuff is way better than what i scrambled together in a fit of overwhelming bro feels. yes, this is basically me taking everything from rals' bio that i am smitten with, which is most of it, and cramming it into this clusterfuck of a fic. #magicalsummer

They were only ever in Hungary for a short summer.

Not enough for them to pick up the language fluently, just enough for them both to remember the hot, dry heat and the flickering bic lighter running on those last few drops for years and years to come. It is probably tinted a rose colour but it remains a very sweet memory he keeps of them.

The abandoned factory has long been demolished.

The sweat drips the same. Trailing down his temple, between his shoulder blades to soak his thin t-shirt in damp patches. He is not in a cape and his duffel sits heavy on his shoulders. Many things have changed, the world for one.

This though, this is constant: he is still his brother’s hero.

Twenty years later, the Becket brothers find themselves outside of Budapest once more.

 

They start there, in Hungary.

Then Germany, and Spain, and France.

 

He is in the hospital for a long, long time after.

He’s got blue in his system and he’s left breathing on a respirator because he can’t do it on his own. He’s not dead but it’s a close, close call when the swipe of Knifehead’s claws tear into the left side of the Conn-Pod.

The Kaiju rips Ranger Yancy Becket out of their Jaeger.

Unlike another version— It doesn’t end here though.

 

Fifteen miles into the Alaskan Gulf, he is found.

 

They are in Munich when Raleigh finally kisses him.

It is a tug. It is a shove. It is his fingers in his hair, his teeth closing down against the push of tongue. He thinks of dying and death, and if he can just close his eyes, like this, maybe he can go out _just_ like this. Like a second breath that doesn’t come. A first that doesn’t start.

He thinks he can live with that.

 

The significance doesn’t escape Yancy even if he wishes it would.

“Now you’re embarrassed?” Raleigh asks, not quite holding still but not quite letting him go just yet when Yancy pulls back and buries his face into the crook of Raleigh’s neck.

“It’s not that, Rals.”

When it hits him, the heat flushes from his cheeks down his throat and into his chest. The soft groan he lets out doesn’t muffle his next words even if he wishes it would.

“I’m not Margit."

Raleigh pauses, and then he is laughing.

Something that shakes through them both.

“And I’m not _twelve_ , Yance.”

 

Here is a dream Yancy Becket once had.

They are in the dark, lying in their beds, in a home their father is absent from. His mother is happy, and even through the narrow slit at the bottom of their shared bedroom door, they can hear the soft sound of her song. And when they close their eyes, they can see her lips stained in red wine, her fingertips in nicotine. He turns on his side beneath the sheets, he says Raleigh's name and hears his own in answer.

It is a dream. It is a memory. Whichever it really is, it is a good one regardless.

 

He finds himself back in his old family home in Oregon.

And wakes up still going uphill on this long, long road to recovery.

His shirt is soaked in sweat, the pain makes him blink back the sting of tears. He strains to see pass the dark of the room and the cold that has seeped right inside to settle in his bones. He is reacting like he is still beneath the Alaskan waters. And it hurts when he tries to breathe but _fuck_ , if it doesn't hurt more when he remembers he is not in their Jaeger.

 

When he loses a t-shirt between Paris and Saint-Sauvier, Yancy borrows one of Raleigh’s without any intention of returning it. And when he fails to find the sweatpants he remembered packing, he finds it hanging low over Raleigh’s hips as he steps back inside their room from his trip to the communal showers at the end of the hall on their floor.

Yancy doesn’t say anything when he pulls on a tank from one of their mismatched duffels. The contents of them mixed then remixed again until only his name penned into the labels of his underwears keep Raleigh from taking them by accident. Neither does Raleigh when his fingers catch on the soft fabric, worn down just to Raleigh's personal liking. He only grabs it by the hem and pulls it over Yancy's head. He says nothing else but the repeat of his brother's name.

 

The hostels they stay in are almost always narrow and pressed for space.

Most nights, there will be two beds.

Most nights, they only make use of one.

 

They reach Saint-Sauvier and barely stay a day.

 

There is no stumble to his words.

Yancy speaks strong, sure, and if Raleigh listens, harder than probably what Yancy wants him to, he can hear the uncertainty in the clench of his jaw, the pull of his lips, and the stern press of his tongue against teeth tipping his younger brother to what might be fear.

“I am going.”

Yancy keeps a steady gaze while Raleigh's eyes follow the movement of his mouth as those words form.

“Where are you planning to go?”

Yancy has the backwoods of their home in Oregon memorized in the years he spent here, going as far as the porch in those early days then to the end of the empty driveway on his good days. The next house, the house at the end of their street, the dirt path through the small park in their block of a neighbourhood, and then the hiking trail beyond that. He doesn't admit to being afraid. It feels a lot like giving in if he lets the emotion take shape, take hold then over.

“Where I always said I would."

 

Raleigh can say many versions of the same thing he repeats in reassurance to himself (that his brother still has him, that he still has his brother) but Raleigh already has his bag packed since the start of the end of it all.

 

"You said a lot of places, Yance."

"We have the rest of our lives, kid."

 

 

 


End file.
